A Honda Odyssey police car, seen in Beijing in 2010. However, it doesn’t belong to the local police force. According to the first character of the license plate, this police vehicle hailed from Hubei Province.
The character is 鄂, or ‘È’, is an ancient alternative name for Hubei. Now that we are into characters anyway, let’s do the rest as well: the red character on the right side of the plate is 警 (jing), short for 警察 (jingcha), which means police, and that’s on the bonnet as well. On the side is 公安 (gong’an), and that means public security. This is a general term used by various police forces.
The Honda Odyssey MPV is somewhat of an odd choice for a police car. The third-generation Odyssey was made in China from 2005 until 2009 by the Guangzhou-Honda joint venture, the successor of the second generation Odyssey. The China-spec Odyssey was powered by a 2.4 liter four-cylinder petrol engine with an output of 160 hp and 218 Nm, good for a 190 hp top speed. Just enough to catch some bad guys in, for example, an old Civic.
